


stories

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Neither of them can ever sleep.For Shallura Week.





	1. Discovery/Recovery

When Shiro emerges from his room, still mopping up sweat from his brow after the nightmare that threatened to engulf him, he’s not the first one up. Allura is sitting at the table, still in her nightdress, staring down at the cup she holds nestled in her hands as if it holds all the answers in the world. He sympathizes with that need - he’s swallowed it all down, all the bile in his throat, and… maybe talking with help them both.

He stops next to her. “Princess?”

She _jumps_ , startled, spilling the purple liquid all over her hands and the table. “Oh, Shiro, you-”

There’s a faint tremble to her hands and her shoulders, and Shiro cuts her off by putting his own shaking hand on her shoulder and giving a squeeze. “I’ll get something to clean that up.”

The look Allura gives him speaks volumes. “Thank you.”

It’s a simple matter to dig around in the cupboards until he finds a rag - lord knows that they all make plenty of messes - and bring it out to the Altean. She steals it from his hand before he can clean, and mops it up herself, the drink staining the blue cloth. He stares at how the purple and blue make red, of all things, and tries not to picture something else. “I’m sorry, I did not know you were here,” she explains, staring at the now-ruined cloth for a moment, before setting it aside on the table.

(Shiro makes a note to take that to the laundry later.)

He pulls out the chair next to her and sits. While his plan was to eat and then go exercise, a way to distract himself from the dark thoughts continually trying to burst forward in his mind, he would take talking as well. “What’s wrong, Allura?”

The princess hesitates, before letting her shoulders slump with a sigh. “Nightmares. Altea, and… and Father.” A small, wry smile curves at her lips. “I trust that is why you are out here as well?”

Involuntarily, Shiro’s flesh hand clutches at his Galran arm, at the point where flesh meets metal, and he shudders slightly. “You’d… guess right.” 

She stares at him for a moment, before speaking up. “What… did you dream of?” Allura sounds unsure, as if she shouldn’t be asking such a question in the first place. He wishes she hadn’t asked.

“I- My dream…” His voice rasps - he doesn’t want to talk about it, but he does, at the same time. His memories come back to him each night, bit by bit, and the need to spill and share the horrors, to share what he’s DONE and what he’s BEEN THROUGH and how it’s WARPED him claw at his insides, but he can’t force the words out.

He feels, instead, like he might vomit. Allura’s reminding him of it is physically painful. “Excuse me, I have to go.”

Shiro cares little about the way he shoves back the chair, or Allura’s shocked noise, or even the pound of his footsteps that make Pidge peek sleepily out her door as he races for the Altean bathroom, flipping up the lid, collapsing to his knees on the floor, bending over and-

and nothing. He can still feel it, still feel the pressing urge to throw up in his throat, how it niggles at him and maybe the acidic burn will create some twisted sense of _relief,_ some escape from the tears he remembers in Matt Holt’s eyes, or the terrified look on the face of some poor creature he kill-

“Shiro.”

Allura is kneeling next to him, face drawn with worry, and she puts a hand on his shoulder. Shiro is grateful for one fleeting moment that he’s wearing a T-shirt and not a tank - he doesn’t want her seeing what’s underneath - but even the sight of the princess doesn’t make him any less sick.

She doesn’t say anything else for a moment, just rubs his back as he breathes heavily over the toilet, before speaking again. “Did I ever tell you of my cousin Romelle?”

It takes him off-guard, a simple question like that, and he shakes his head slowly. If he opens his mouth, he’s not sure what words or… stuff in general will emerge.

“Well. We’ve always looked alike, and when we became able to control our shifting, we made sure we were identical. No one could tell us apart, not even my nanny. So, one day, we decided that we would play a little trick on our parents…” 

As Allura spins the tale of how she and her cousin had once swapped places for a week, pretending to be each other, and she had almost caused a diplomatic incident between Pollux and Elysium when she punched an Elysium man who wouldn’t stop hitting on her, Shiro slowly, slowly relaxes.

He feels bad - she had clearly suffered through something as well, last night, and yet she’s setting it aside for him - but he can’t help but lean into her as her words wash over him and slowly, slowly make feel less sick.

Not… better. It is not some miracle cure, Allura’s voice. (If only - he’d have even more of an excuse to be with her if that were the case.) But he won’t vomit, he can be sure of it, and he closes his eyes.

Next time, he’ll tell her a story.


	2. Bridge/Tradition

He throws up in the middle of the night after a mission, a few days later. The bile clogs and clings in his throat, burning and the taste of the food goo not any better on the way up.

Shiro’s knees press into the floor with bruising force as he lets loose over the toilet, bile and burning and aching until nothing more will come out, and he collapses against it. He sweats, his shirt damp, and it’s not until a few minutes have passed that he manages to push himself up, wobbling on his feet until he braces against the wall.

The toilet flushes behind him as he leaves - but he’s not alone, anymore. Allura stands just beyond the doorway, eyes tired. She’s holding two mugs and she silently offers one to Shiro. He takes it. It looks like tea, some sort of alien space tea, and he cradles it between his palms as he quietly follows her to the couch.

They sink down together without a word, and it’s not until Shiro finally caves and sips at his drink that Allura speaks. “Do you want me to tell you another story?”

He wants to say yes. Her story had been soothing the last time, had calmed him, and he wants to be selfish and say yes. Wants Allura to be a balm to his nerves once more.

But she has bags under her eyes, she stares at nothing at the opposite wall, there’s a faint trembling to her entire body as she sits in nothing but her nightshift - he can’t do that. He can’t make her forget herself to take care of him once more.

Gently, he lays one hand on her knee. Ignoring the way she starts, ignoring how her tea almost splashes over her once more, he gives her small smile. “Allura… what can I do for you?” His voice rasps, but it’s strong. He can get the words out.

She shakes her head. “Shiro, I’m fine, really.” She doesn’t look at him, staring into her tea, hands unable to still. “I don’t need-”

“Allura. Please.”

The altean sucks in a quick breath of air, and Shiro is alarmed to realize that tears are welling up in her eyes. “P-Please, Shiro, let… let me tell you a story. It- It’s good for me too, I p-promise.”

He gazes at her steadily for a moment, before giving her knee a squeeze and pulling back. “It is?”

Allura nods, sipping her drink as her eyes fall to her knee, riveted to where he had touched. “I’m…” It takes her a moment to wrestle with the words. “I’m scared that I’ll. I’ll forget. It’s just-” Her face crumples, and Shiro reaches out to tug her tea from her grasp. He sets both cups on the floor and she lets out a sob, covering her face with her hands.

He hovers for a moment, hands unsure and uncertain, before gently wrapping an arm around her, pulling her into him. She curls into his body, pulling her feet up onto the couch as she cries into his shoulder. “It’s-” Allura can hardly speak, her body heaving with the sobs that curl up from her throat, but she forges onward nonetheless. “J-Just me and- and C-Coran, I-” She inhales, a deep shuddering breath that runs all the way down to her toes, and then melts into him. Her tears come quieter, now.

“I’m s-so scared, t-to. T-To forget, t-to not remember… anything.”

They’re quiet for a moment, both of them, before Shiro gives her a gentle squeeze. “That’s why you… want to tell me stories.”

She nods, finally pulling her hands away as she wipes at her eyes and looks up to meet his. “I want- I want you t-to know my family, m-my… my friends, our t-traditions.” Allura shakes her head, and then rests it against his shoulder. “I don’t want them… to d-die with Coran and I.”

After a moment of hesitation, Shiro kisses the top of her head. She doesn’t react, and he relaxes. “They won’t. Please, princess. Tell me another.”

The Altean sniffs once, twice, and then exhales. “W-Well… When I was but ten, I had the… the idea that I would be the n-next Green Paladin…”

He holds her until dawn breaks.


End file.
